1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus forming an image by fixing toner forming a toner image on a recording medium such as paper upon application of heat, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus such as a copier, facsimile machine, or printer forming an image thereby, using a fixing liquid such that the toner is suitably fixed on the recording medium.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Conventionally, image forming apparatuses such as copiers, facsimiles, and printers forming an image by fixing toner forming a toner image on a recording medium such as paper upon application of heat are widely known. In the image forming apparatuses, since toner is softened with heat and fixed on a recording medium, the toner needs to be sufficiently softened at apart contacting the recording medium to have good fixability, which in turn requires much energy. However, demands for saving energy in image forming apparatuses are now increasing. Considering that the ratio of power needed to heat the toner to total power consumption in an image forming apparatus is comparatively high, it is desired to reduce the power consumption needed to heat the toner.
To achieve this reduction in power consumption, a number of different approaches have been tried, involving techniques that add a fixing liquid, by direct or indirect methods, before or after image formation, to soften or transform the toner in order to fix the toner image on the recording medium without the need to use heat.
However, these methods of forming images, which use a liquid for improving the fixability of the toner to reduce the amount of electric power needed for heating the toner in order to fix the image on the recording medium without image distortion, have not been found capable of application to liquid as well as non-liquid development technologies due to problems such as uncontrolled scattering of the liquid, the large amount of power consumed in drying, the lengthening of the time required for fixing the image, the possible adverse effects on interior components of the image forming apparatus, and the difficulty in avoiding degradation of the capabilities of the liquid.